


leaned in and let it hurt

by magicofthepen



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Audio: Gallifrey: Series 5, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Grief, Multi, explorations of past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29057070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicofthepen/pseuds/magicofthepen
Summary: It isn't easy to walk away. It isn't any easier to come back.A Series 5 Leela character study.
Relationships: Leela (Doctor Who)/Narvin (Doctor Who), Leela/Romana II
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	leaned in and let it hurt

**Author's Note:**

> This fic includes dialogue from Emancipation, Evolution, Arbitration, and Extermination. 
> 
> Title from "Pluto" by Sleeping At Last.

The first night is cold and dry. 

Leela had no plan, when she stormed out of the Panopticon. She still doesn’t, but at least there are other people around her, bodies snoring and breathing and shivering and whispering, as they huddle in this craggy mountain shelter. 

The fresh air is a shock against her skin. The Axis, with its bitter staleness, had become uncomfortably familiar. Falling asleep meant a buzz of strange energies around her, meant being surrounded by too clean walls. Food meant machines, meant swallowing things that were never alive. She resented it, but at the same time, she did not expect it to change so suddenly. Not — not like this.

Leela’s stomach growls. She swallows, ignoring the glances of the people around her who are used to so many more pangs of hunger, who know exhaustion and misery as a fact of life. Even caught between worlds on the Axis, Leela’s life was so much kinder than anything they endured. She will have to grow used to this again — the search for food, the unsteady shelter, the fear of not being able to heal those who are hurt or sick. 

But it’s better this way. It has to be better this way. 

She leans her head back against stone, letting it sap the warmth from her skin. A low sound rumbles in the distance, and this Gallifrey doesn’t have temporal storms, so maybe it’s thunder, rain, water they can collect and drink here in these dry wildlands. 

Leela slips through the tangle of people and leaves the shelter. Outside, the wind bites at her shoulders, nips at her ankles. She ignores it, lets her fingers chill almost to numbness the longer she stands there. When she looks up, the stars are the same, and an ache settles in her ribcage. 

There are no clouds speckling her view, and now other fears stack and swirl in her stomach — shifting earth, a landslide, what if their shelter isn’t safety at all? 

She had no plan, and she still doesn’t, and for a moment, exhausted regret settles on her shoulders — what was she thinking, leaving the city behind? What was she thinking, taking these people into the Outlands and saying she could protect them? 

_(She still sees them when she sleeps, cold white faces, the blood of her students staining the Academy grounds. In quiet moments, she’s lost inside her own head, back beside Andred’s grave, the world clawed open and empty around her. When she paced the Axis, she could still feel blood on her fingers — Narvin’s, when they didn’t know if he would live. And Romana — )_

Leela tastes blood and realizes she’s bitten through her lip. Her palms are indented with the sharpness of her nails. 

She can hear so far now. Somewhere, a waterfall trickles. Somewhere, scurrying pig-rats burrow in for the night. Somewhere, in their fragile shelter, someone is crying.

The Time Lords would like to pretend that Gallifrey isn’t alive, but it is. In every reality, it’s crashing, buzzing, rumbling in the distance. In every reality, it’s hurting. 

Gallifrey is alive, and so is Leela, against all odds.

* * *

A young woman is perched on the rocks outside of the shelter when morning comes, and Leela walks out to greet the first watery sunrise. Leela’s head is pounding — from not sleeping, from the trembling aftershocks of her whole world tilting under her feet _again_ — she doesn’t know. The woman’s eyes are wary, her arms red with recent scars.

“They’re going to come after us,” she says, low and shaky. “They’ll send the guards out here and drag us back.”

Leela settles down on a rock beside her, legs crossed. It isn’t comfortable.

“If they try, we will be ready.”

“ _Ready?_ Ready for _what_? We can’t trick them again.”

“They are not as clever as they think they are.”

The woman is silent, staring at the glowing horizon. A breeze dances across the ground, spitting dust up in small spirals. It’s beautiful, in a dangerous way, the reddish sky and open air, the sharp peaks of mountains rising behind them. 

“And what are we?” she says, finally. “A bunch of slaves who ran away. They’re not going to let that happen.”

_They._

She means the Regenerators, this woman who has only seen cruelty her entire life. She means that those with any scrap of power will cling to it, will wield it like a knife sliding between ribs to cut them all down.

Who has the power here?

Leela walked away — _ran_ away — left Romana and Narvin and their dead other selves. Will they try to fill those holes? Is there anything else they can do, now that Romana cut them off from the Axis?

The burning mix of anger-grief slices through her chest, and Leela is so _tired._

_They’re going to come after us._

She had no plan when she ran, but it _was_ a choice. 

“You are not anyone’s slave,” Leela says. “We have much pain to bear, yes, and much rebuilding to do, but the Regenerators _will_ have to listen to us. They depended on you, they took you for granted, and now — now they will have to learn that you are not coming back. They will have to _adapt_.”

The doubt on the woman’s face grows the longer Leela speaks, but the burning has settled deep into her chest here — the conviction that she will not move, will not go back. The future stretches ahead of them all, roiling in uncertainty but trembling with freedom.

“What is your name?” Leela asks, and the woman starts. They still aren’t used to being asked that question.

“Maris,” she says finally, and Leela smiles.

* * *

They find water, rushing pools of it. They find food — tafelshrews, dry and stringy, cooked over an open fire. Erium, one of the older ones, sharpens sticks with Leela’s spare knife, his hand methodical but weary as it chips the wood. Two women stare down into the running pools and frustrate themselves trying to spear fish.

So many of them are slumped in exhaustion, years of physical pain catching up to them all at once. So many of them have cuts and bruises from the skirmish and the flight from the Capitol that are raw and open. They clean their wounds in the water, they rip their own sleeves to bandage, but it isn’t enough. It isn’t enough. 

“We won’t last out here,” Maris says in the evening, and it’s that that jars Leela out of her own weariness — she won’t be told what’s _possible_. 

They need to rely on the world outside, but they need to _survive_ , first and foremost. For a heartbeat, she considers — but no. There’s a way out that doesn’t involve surrender.

The Citadel waits on the horizon, sharp and gleaming. 

Leela tips her head. “Do you know where they keep their extra food?” 

“The Regenerators? Probably many places. Hakka would know more, she ran deliveries all the time.” Maris stares. “You aren’t thinking —“

“They have stolen so much from you,” Leela says. Too bitter. “We are going to steal it back.”

It helps if she says things in definitives — they _will_ be free, they _will_ find a way to live out here. 

A part of her remembers — that’s what Romana did too, isn’t it, promised things with such certainty you couldn’t help but believe her — 

Leela cuts off the thought.

* * *

The first time they sneak in, her and Maris and Hakka, it’s early morning, the second sun just edging the horizon. Night would hide them but it would also be expected — Leela spends the entire raid fearing that they’re _expected_ , that the Chancellery Guard is posted outside of every supply room, just waiting to catch the runaways.

Hakka is quiet, eyes distant, but she slides through the cracks in the Citadel with precision. The walls hide passages, and passages mean faster deliveries, mean less beatings — or at least that’s what Maris whispers when Leela makes a vaguely impressed noise at Hakka’s navigational skills.

_You learn what you need to survive._

So many of the Regenerator’s supplies are just sitting there, collecting dust or rot in the storage rooms. Hakka smiles, all teeth, when she sees them. Maris dives in, bundling her arms full of more food than she can carry without staggering. Leela is quieter, feet padding carefully against the ground. She doesn’t trust that the Time Lords — the Regenerators — don’t have eyes here. 

She watches them, these people who have lived their whole lives in fear, push back. Say _this is mine now_. Say _this should have always been mine_. Say _you won’t catch me, I know this world_ better. She watches the tension in their shoulders ease when no guards come running, and she lets out a breath. 

This Gallifrey is not Leela’s world. These people are not her people, and yet — there is something that sings inside of her as they slip back through the tunnels, stolen supplies in tow. It feels good, to be _doing_ something. It feels right.

* * *

The relief that ripples around their camp after the supply run is palpable. Dividing up the food is less simple — the group is circling each other, wary. Wanting to snatch up what they can, wanting to be sure their own bellies are full first. Hakka stands over the supplies, eyes sharp, and calls the most sick forward first. The problem is that too many have been ill all their lives, worn down by pains that have been left untreated. The problem is, there isn’t anyone here who is _well_.

Leela checks in on all of them. She runs the rounds once, twice, three times. The blood of the Hounds still runs in her veins — she has more energy than any of them, too much life brimming in her body. She can keep going the longest. She does not need rest, not like they do. 

She waits through the night, guarding the camp. When the first sun is rising, the sky dim, Maris meets her outside once more.

“Have you been up all night?”

“I will be fine. You need the rest, but someone should keep watch here.”

“Just in case they come after us, you mean. Even _you_ think that — ”

“I think — I _know_ that we can survive. But that does not mean we should let our guard down.”

Maris snorts, rubbing her arms against the chill of the wind. There is a long silence as they watch the sun drift up once more, scattering the clouds.

“You should go inside, Leela.” Maris says, finally. “I can take watch.” 

Her voice is soft, sharp. Her eyes are adrift. Leela agrees without argument, not just because she is biting back a yawn, but because Maris clearly wants the time to herself. 

When she finds a patch of dirt to rest her head on, Leela tries to sleep. She does. She can feel the exhaustion soaked deep into her muscles, the desire to drift away and escape this, all of this — the uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring, the way she’s surrounded by all of these people, breathing quietly and shuffling around and sighing and snoring, and yet she still feels too cold. Too alone.

Leela curls into herself, arm hugging her own stomach. She doesn’t think about the nights on the Axis spent sharing Romana's bed because it was easier to sleep when she wasn’t by herself in the dark. She doesn’t think about the nights they, accidentally or on purpose, ended up cuddled together, arms and legs entwined, breath rising and falling in the same rhythm. She doesn’t think about it at all.

* * *

It isn’t night when the guards first come.

It’s a patrol — and Leela doesn’t know if it was an accident or a deliberate party sent to track them down. She only knows that Erium and a few others are out gathering what plants in this area they could eat, and then suddenly they're back early, the two others half-carrying Erium between them as he staggers, bleeding from a lump on his head. 

“What happened?” Leela hisses, motioning for one of the water buckets and tearing a strip of cloth from the sleeve of her tunic. When Erium collapses in front of her, the scrap of fabric is not enough to staunch the bleeding — it soaks through, and Leela tries not to let her hands tremble. 

( _All the bodies — the students laid out one by one to hide the blood. The guards who did not return from the defense of the Academy. The stench of death that lingered in those crumbling, dark ruins, a stench that no one, Leela is sure of it, will be able to scrub clean._ )

“Capital guard patrol,” one of the others murmurs. He’s pacing, squatting, staring, in constant motion as he hovers around Erium, watching Leela work. Ky, she thinks his name is. “They said we were stealing, and _we_ said we had every right to pick these plants, and there was a scuffle and one of the guards tried to draw his staser but Erium knocked him back but _then_ he got hit on the head, and we only just managed to get away — ”

“ _Stealing? Us_?” Hakka practically barks. She hands Leela another wet cloth, and the blood finally starts to slow. They will need more bandages. They will need something cold, for the lump on his forehead. 

“The bleeding should mean you were not hit too badly. It is a shallow wound.” Leela swallows. “You will be alright, Erium.”

He nods, wincing. But the look in his eyes — it is as skittish as a tafelshrew scrabbling away through the dirt. 

Something coils tight in Leela, thick and dark and ready to snap. _Why were the guards sent?_

_Who sent them?_

* * *

The answer, or the _not-an-answer_ , comes sooner than she would expect. There is a package dropped off just outside where they have made their camp. Leela watches the skimmer approach, watches the guard lay it down carefully on the dirt and then scurry away, a coward crawling back to the harsh glass walls of the city that only mean safety for some.

Leela’s name is on the package. She gets a couple of the others — the other Outsiders, they’ve started calling themselves — to help her study it, check to see if there is anything secret there that can harm them.

She doesn’t want to believe there are any traps. She doesn’t want to believe that — _whoever_ — sent this might wish them ill. But perhaps some of the paranoia of the other Outsiders has crept into her lungs. Or perhaps she spent too much time in her life not being paranoid, too much time trusting without asking enough questions. 

When they finally open it, it is — supplies. Packets of food that can be cooked over a fire, dull and bland but enough to fill someone’s belly. Clothes, warmer ones. Basic medical supplies — bandages and creams. It isn’t much, in just this one package, but it will help.

The message at the bottom of the package is addressed to her, too. Leela snatches it quickly before the others can see and waits until she is safely back at the camp and sheltered in her own corner of the campsite before sneaking a peek.

The Time Lords don’t write by hand much, but enough that Leela knows without looking at the signature that somewhere in the city, Romana held this piece of paper and tried to think of the right words. 

_I heard about the skirmish between one of the guard patrols and a group of former slaves outside the Capitol. Rest assured, the guards involved have been removed from rotation for their egregious use of force._

_Please find enclosed a medi-kit and food provisions. The city has many resources; if you need anything at all, you need only ask. And you are, of course, welcome to return whenever you wish._

Leela crumples the letter. 

She doesn’t know if it’s a lie, if Romana really never intended to spark violence here. She doesn’t know if her intent _matters_ — if Romana had a role to play in sending the guards, shouldn’t she have known what could happen? Shouldn’t she have been more careful?

And the message itself — Romana didn’t sign it with her title, but this letter feels like it was sent by the President of Gallifrey. Not Leela’s — whatever she was to Leela.

_If you need anything at all…._

_You are, of course, welcome to return whenever you wish…._

Of course, Romana assumes that Leela will come back. Of course, she assumes that Leela _needs_ her. 

Leela’s heart was so lonely after Andred’s first death. Perhaps she did need Romana then — friendless and lacking a purpose on Gallifrey. But Leela _has_ friends among the Outsiders, people she trusts. And she has her own purpose on this world — she doesn’t need Romana to give her one. She doesn’t need to fight for Romana anymore.

That night, Leela burns the letter in one of the campfires and watches the flakes of ash scatter against the stars.

* * *

The path into the city becomes familiar. Leela no longer needs the guidance of Hakka or any of the others; she can slip away on her own, wander through the great Citadel without being seen.

Every time, she tells herself not to look. She should stick to the goals of the mission — get in, get out. Get only what she needs.

But she is just as good at making up excuses. It’s better to familiarize herself with the passages, in case there’s an emergency and she needs to run somewhere else. It’s better to keep an eye on those with power, to watch how they move.

But that doesn’t explain the hollow sensation in her chest when she’s staring at the President of Gallifrey through a crack between the walls.

Romana doesn’t belong here either. Worse, she’s an imposter, wearing someone else’s skin just because she can. And yet when she’s talking to whichever Time Lord is currently walking beside her in the corridor, the coolness of her voice and deliberate lift of her chin — it’s so certain. So unshakeable. Even in a reality so different from her own, Romana steps into the Presidency like a second skin. 

Her letter — and the next one, and the next one — are all long gone, but the words linger in Leela’s mind. They were supposed to be a peace offering, she assumes, but they were drenched in stiff formality. 

She doesn’t know why casting them into the fire feels satisfying, why refusing to answer Romana feels like a relief. She doesn’t know why seeing her, even half-squinting through a gap like this, makes her heart leap and sink in equal measure.

Romana goes about her day, unaware of the intrusion. Romana goes about her day, moving from one meeting to the next seamlessly. (Any letters are just another item on her to-do list. She belongs, and Leela never will.)

The next time a letter arrives, Leela returns it to the guards. She wants Romana to know that she received her message. She wants Romana to know that she is simply choosing not to answer.

* * *

What has been shipped out to them is not enough. What they can find on their own is not enough.

Hakka is coughing and coughing, and she’s not getting any better. And it’s spreading, too — and Leela doesn’t know if it’s the too cold winds at night or water that isn’t clean enough or a long-carried disease rearing its head. She only knows that the cough is thick and slimy and wheezing and it echoes around the camps. 

A young man who was always good at keeping their supplies organized — Jamalan — finds her. They hand out the day’s food quietly, until he finally bursts out, “Can’t we do _something_?”

“I do not know what more can be done.” Leela gestures around the camp — a camp that’s more like several camps now, with people drifting off into their own smaller groups to build shelters together and make plans for food gathering. “Sickness will spread in a place like this.”

She closes her eyes, the weight of helplessness threatening to settle on her shoulders again. No. No one has been lost here, not _yet_ , and even though Erium still gets terrible headaches and children — _children_ — are crying out for more water in the night as they cough — she cannot let herself be swept away by this current of hopelessness. She cannot let herself drown in it. 

“The storerooms in the city. Couldn’t we take another group and — ” 

“We have only been able to get to where they keep their food.” The coughing from the corner of the room is louder now, and Leela makes an effort not to wince. “We do not have the medicine to help with this.”

“There _must_ be a way to get more medicine.” He’s insistent, determined, and after the life he’s led, after all the death and suffering he has likely seen — that is enough to make Leela stand a little taller, her eyes narrow.

Something itches at her — ash floating in the sky. Words she wanted to ignore but couldn’t forget.

 _If you need anything at all_ —

Something twists in her stomach, something like pride. But there are more important things. 

Somewhere in the camp, someone is crying.

There was a communicator that came with one of the packages. Leela doesn't use it. But that night, she sneaks into the city and wanders until she finds the office she’s looking for. It isn’t much trouble to leave a scribbled message on the desk, unsigned. 

She leaves the Chancellor’s office without a trace.

* * *

The shipment arrives before the suns are up. Medicines, dropped from a couple of skimmers in the darkness, a sense of subterfuge about the whole thing. Leela wonders idly, as she pries open the first box, if they were guards at all. That would be the obvious choice for the Chancellor to use, but Narvin never wanted to be Chancellor.

Morning is much too quick for their High Council — _Inner_ Council — to have made any decisions, much less any that would help the Outsiders. As she unpacks the nondescript box quietly in her hut on the edge of the largest of the camps, a twinge of something warm threatens to settle in her ribcage. Narvin’s first loyalty is to Romana and Gallifrey, she knows this, and yet when Leela asked, he sent her what she needed. Quietly, possibly illegally. Without a fuss. 

Without a note too, which somehow makes it better. She is tired of the strained politeness in Romana’s letters, tired of —

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know why thinking of Romana is always harder. She tries the words _Madam President_ again and again in her head, says _Supreme Leader_ out loud, and those taste even more bitter.

But _is_ it truly easier, thinking of Narvin moving quietly through the stiff halls of the Capitol, arranging for her to receive the medication that might save some of them? _Is_ it really easier to trust him, the Time Lord she has not known as well or as long? The Time Lord who was only a recent ally, and an even more recent friend? 

It does not matter what she thinks of him, she decides, as she brings the contents of the box to the medical hut. All that matters is that people will suffer less now.

* * *

Unfortunately, she doesn’t prepare herself for the questions.

“Where did these come from?” Pallick, who has decided to turn to healing now that they have a choice in what their life’s work will be, stares in shock at the medicine. “They haven’t given us anything nearly so good before.”

“I do not think they knew what we needed,” Leela says. There’s a sharp bite to her voice, a bit defensive. She tries to smooth it over, resents herself for wanting ( _still_ ) to believe the best in the people she had once called friends. 

“More likely, they didn’t care,” Pallick mutters. “But the timing, I don’t understand — ”

“I asked for the assistance,” Leela says, and the others in the tent turn to stare. Pallick blinks at her once, twice.

“We needed more than we had,” she adds, insistent. “And we could not get into where they were keeping the medicine ourselves so — ”

“I understand _that_.” It’s one of the younger healers now, a boy who is not quite a child and not quite an adult, who has always been forced to be too much too soon in his life. “But how did you get them to _agree_?”

“I — ” There are too many ways Leela could answer that question. “After everything we have been through, they owed it to us to — ”

“Owed?” Pallick shakes her head. “They have never believed they owed us anything. The Regenerators only care about their own power.”

“Perhaps,” Leela says. “But — ”

“But nothing!” Pallick eyes the medicine. “We don’t have much choice to take what they’ve given us — and that’s the point, isn’t it? They make sure we need them. They make sure we can’t get by without them. They stay in _control_.”

“We _will_ get by without them, eventually,” Leela says. 

“They won’t let that happen.” The boy stares at the ground, shoulders slumped. “They never wanted us to be free, none of them.”

“That isn’t true.” Leela’s hands press to the table. “The Supreme Leader — ”

“ _Her?_ She’s the worst of any of them! Don’t you know what she’s done?” 

_No. Yes._

Whatever Supreme Leader Romana has done on this world, whoever she’s hurt — that wasn’t _this_ Romana, _her_ Romana —

No, that thought is wrong. Romana isn’t _hers_.

But it’s one thing for Leela to declare that she is from another world in the heat of sparking a rebellion, and quite another to spread the rumor that Romana and Narvin are imposters, aliens to this world. The Outsiders may think better of them if they know the truth, but if word travels back to the city, if the other Regenerators turn on them — that will not be good for anyone. 

She swallows, trying to shut out the wheezing cough in the corner, the sharp cold breeze that still manages to seep into the hut, the sensation of climbing uphill.

“We needed more than we had, and they gave it,” Leela repeats. “That does not mean we have to trust them.”

* * *

The Capitol is not a lifeline. There is nothing kind or reassuring about the old, stale air and the dome sealing these old, stagnant people from the beauty of the Outlands. And yet, whenever there is a mission into the city, Leela goes. She lets her feet carry her there and back, she watches from the shadows, watches Narvin grimace and Romana glare. Tries to remember why she stayed with them once. Tries to forget.

There are other copies on this world other than Romana and Narvin’s now-dead alternate selves, she knows. She glimpses them occasionally — faces she recognizes from the old Gallifrey but never knew very well. Once, she spots Braxiatel marching down one of the halls and closes her eyes. Takes a moment to remember those lost. Wonders how it must feel to Romana, to have an old friend there and _not-there_ at the same time.

She is slipping back into a secret passage, heart pounding after nearly getting caught on one of the main floors, when she hears Andred’s voice.

Leela freezes. She shouldn’t, she _can’t_ afford to freeze, not this close to where the passage opens up. Not this close to a place where she could be spotted.

The words themselves are — nothing. They fade in and out. Something about a guard rotation. Something about —

She presses her forehead to the cold wall of the passage and breathes deep, the air hissing in and out of her lungs. She stays there for a long time. 

It is Andred’s voice. But not _her_ Andred. Never _her_ Andred. On every Axis world they explored, whenever she had the — luck? misfortune? — of running across him, it was always the regeneration she had first known as Torvald. In all these other worlds, she never saw the Time Lord she had fallen in love with, only ever the one she buried.

* * *

Jamalan and Maris find her after they return to the camp. The camp that is becoming more of a town, with buildings of wood and stone, dirt paths well-trodden from place to place, storehouses built up to last them through the changing seasons.

Maris knocks on the door of Leela’s hut, and the three of them settle down on the mats woven over the dirt. 

Maris is the first to break the silence. “What’s wrong, Leela?” 

“Nothing important. The supply run went fine.”

“You were _late_ , meeting us to go back. You’re never late.”

“It is…..complicated to explain, Maris.”

“Everything is always complicated, with you,” she mutters, an edge to her voice that makes Jamalan look alarmed.

“Maris, should you really be — "

“Should I really be _what_ , Jamalan? Leela does so much for us, but she never talks about herself. Isn’t that strange?”

“I don’t know if we should be questioning — "

Maris shakes her head, her dark curls bouncing. “That’s the _point_ , we _should_ be questioning — "

“Alright.” Leela sets down her cup. “You are right, Maris. I know it is hard to ask you to trust me. I was not one of you, I cannot understand everything you must be feeling. But my story is long, and difficult to explain.”

“You said you came from another world,” Jamalan says, hesitant. “When you said we should rebel, fight back. You said you could take us away, but — "

“But the power to do that disappeared with Project Rassilon,” Leela finishes. “I told you this.”

“I know, but.” He shifts on the mat. “I still don’t understand.”

“I came here by accident, I suppose you could say. I did not intend to travel this world in particular, and I certainly did not intend to spend the rest of my life here. But now, there is no way off this world for any of us. Now…” She swallows. “Now, this is where I belong.”

“Are you sure?” Maris studies her.

“What do you mean?”

“When you said that, about belonging here. You didn’t sound sure.”

“I — "

 _Belong._ She has never _belonged_ , no matter where she finds herself. She didn’t belong with the Sevateem, she didn’t belong on any of the thousand worlds she rushed in and out of with the Doctor, she didn’t belong on the Gallifrey that she lived on for most of her life. She asks too many questions, she does not believe what she is supposed to, she does not follow the rules, she is too disruptive, too stubborn. There is no place in the universe — in any universe — where she has ever had roots that felt like they were meant to last. There is no place in the universe she has ever truly found to be her home.

There were still times when she was happy. Because she has never needed a whole world to call home, only the mother who told her stories and taught her courage, or the friend who ran with her through the universe, or the husband who walked by her side her through the city, or —

Leela closes her eyes. All the happiness she once tried to find is gone now, crumpled into dust that blows away as quickly as the sands outside.

“I have lost too much to be sure of anything,” she says, and the quiet tremble in her voice is more honest than anything she has said to the Outsiders in weeks. “But I will do what I can to help you. That I can promise.”

“Who did you lose?”

“ _Maris_ ,” Jamalan hisses.

“What? It’s a fair question. And it’s not like — ” Maris swallows. “It’s not like you’re the only one. We’ve all lost people. Family. Friends. The Regenerators took so much from us.”

Leela opens her eyes. It does help, that Maris is unafraid to ask questions these days. It does make her feel like some of the chains that have been squeezing all of them in different ways are loosening. Like they are learning how to breathe again.

And yet.

“I would rather not talk about it,” Leela says, and that’s it.

That night, she sits alone on the mats as the sky darkens, Maris’s words burrowing into her, itching under her skin. _We’ve all lost people. The Regenerators took so much from us._

There is something swirling inside her, an ache that threatens to steal her breath and freeze her body. Perhaps hearing Andred today was too much; she was too unprepared for it. Or perhaps this ache was always going to end up squeezing her chest until she curls her knees against her chin, shoulders shaking, hiding her tears from the world.

It is not a dull grief, not the numbness she had grown so used to. It is not the rage, the rush for vengeance, that simmered inside her so long ago. It is whatever was hiding underneath, whatever pain she hoped would disappear, if only she kept herself fighting. If only she never stood still. 

Andred betrayed her, and he died. Romana — Romana let herself get tangled up in Pandora, let the dark spirit into her head, spilled his blood before Leela could make her peace with him.

It was so much simpler to insist she had forgiven them both. 

It is so much harder to keep pretending it's that easy.

* * *

Their camp isn’t a camp any longer: it’s a settlement. A township.

They talk often. They argue even more often. But it feels good, to hear people push and snap about things that matter, things like how they will get enough clean water or what changes need to be made to their combat training, to make sure those who are guarding the township have the power to match any Regenerators who might try to take this land.

They are not easy questions. Nothing about this is easy — she falls asleep with her muscles aching from training a group of Outsiders in how to fight with a knife or shoot the stasers they stole in the initial rebellion, from hunting to keep their food supply well-stocked. She gets so little rest before she is up again, checking on the construction of more homes, checking on the stores, checking and checking and checking because there is a fragility in this place. The walls creak and howl. The people whisper and do not often trust.

Leela spends many nights staring up at the sky (those same-different stars). Even cast in layers of shadow, the world around her, a world she never thought she would be able to see again, is beautiful. 

There is a fragility in this place, a coldness that slips into where they sleep and leaves them shivering. So many carry memories with them that Leela can only dream of. Her losses are so little, compared to the freedom these people were denied.

Their camp is a township, then another, and another. One group dividing and dividing again, but it doesn’t feel like a community fracturing. It feels like endurance, a chain link of groups who are not the same, but who can turn to each other when the hunting went poorly for one, or there is a sickness in another.

There is a hope in this place, quiet and fluttering. Laughter in streets. Warm food in their bellies. The flickering, fragile stars fading to light, again and again and again.

They call the first one Mancipia.

* * *

Pallick is still afraid of what the city’s aid means, and Leela can’t blame them.

“We depend too much on the Regenerators,” they insist in one of the recurring meetings they’ve started leading outside the hospital. Some sit, some stand. Some eyes are intense, some flare with an anger that will burn bright if let loose. Some are nervous, the fear sharp in their furrowed brows and twitching hands. Freeing themselves, running away, was already drastic. Some worry that the more they push, the more the fragile world they’ve built here risks collapsing.

Pallick and their allies believe that they need to push now, before they lose the ground they’ve gained.

Leela hovers on the edge of the circle. Watching. Listening. Her gut yearns for a fair fight, for a true brawl against the Regenerator guards that will decide once and for all that they have a right to be here. She hasn’t slept well in weeks, something still and cold freezing around her stomach, tight in her chest. Fighting, anger, those are familiar. The old friends she returns to again and again. The old enemies she can never escape.

The meeting dissolves with nothing decided. Leela approaches Pallick after.

“Are you here to insist we go along with them?” They sound tired, bitter. Something inside her twinges in sympathy.

“You are right,” she says, quiet. “As long as we are not independent, we are not truly free here. But — ”

“ _But?_ ”

“But. If we are to be truly independent, the Regenerators have to respect us as such. We cannot ignore them entirely.”

It isn’t enough to push away Romana’s letters. She wants Romana to see that she is _fine_ on her own, that neither she nor the Outsiders needs to cling to the city to survive. They have to stand tall, unafraid. They have to ready themselves for the fight that must be coming. 

She keeps meeting with Pallick and the others. They outline plan after plan, ways of keeping the townships from needing to rely so much on the city’s charity. (Leela doesn’t mention that it isn’t the _city_ that’s being charitable. She doesn’t know what happens if the other Regenerators on the Inner Council decide that their President is being _too_ charitable. She doesn’t think about what might happen if Romana and Narvin are discovered.) 

They outline plan after plan, ways of defending the townships if the guards were to attack in the night or the middle of the day — a strike force, a proper assault. They sketch plans in the dust of this world, build up walls. Leela keeps training these people how to attack with their fists, with a blade, how to fire a staser, how to use whatever is around them as defense. 

It isn’t long before they need it. 

Regenerators lurk outside the townships, hopping off their skimmers with fancy equipment. Scanning. Cutting into the earth. They don’t bother the Outsiders — at first. 

But shortly after, mining equipment is rolling into the edge of town. Whispers travel fast: the mining guild has a contract with the presidential office for ziton ore — something to do with time travel experiments. Mancipia grew up around an old mining site, and before the mine’s first closure, there was evidence of a potential ziton ore deposit. Ziton ore isn’t used for much, they hear, but now it’s got quite a market among the government and the scientists’ they’re funding.

Leela knows what the whispers of time travel are referring to. She also knows that she will not stand by and let the Regenerators hollow out the earth from under her feet. She won’t let them take from the Outsiders again and again and give nothing back.

They have been looking for greater independence, and if _Mancipia_ controls this old mine, they will have it.

More Regenerators show up with more machines, but this time, the Outsiders are ready.

* * *

Romana’s message says: _I am happy to discuss Mancipia’s claim to the ore deposit._

Romana’s message says: _The mining guild does have significant power here. But you are always welcome in the Capitol, too._

Romana’s message says: _We can negotiate. We can resolve this standoff without resorting to fighting._

Romana’s message says: _We_ , and something funny settles in Leela’s stomach because they are not working together. Romana’s first priority is not to protect the people who are struggling to build a life outside of the city. Romana’s first priority is her own power, her own position; it always has been. She can say all the nice words she wants, but she will always put her own people first. She can say all the nice words she wants, but Leela has never been welcome in the Capitol and never will be.

It isn’t the first letter. It takes many messages back and forth, passed stiffly through the hands of the guards, before a plan is formed. Leela sits with the others — Pallick and the rest — to read out the President’s replies and draft new ones. It’s a delicate balance — the other Outsiders know the shape of this place’s politics, but Leela is the only one who knows the people who run this world. 

_Without resorting to fighting_. It’s a pretty lie, but if Romana wants to play this game of negotiations, Leela will play along. There is much she could learn by looking her enemies in the eye, as the people back in the township prepare quietly to sabotage, attack. They will steal this equipment for themselves if they have to, repel the guards. They are tired of not being in control. 

After Jamalan’s first attempt at damaging the mining equipment, after he stumbles back into camp, bleeding, Leela decides that she will take Valyes with her as an envoy. Partially because of his knowledge of the circles of power, and partially because she does not trust him, and she would rather have him away from Mancipia as the others are preparing their defense. Leela and Pallick have an understanding: it is better if they can do any of this without bloodshed. It is not likely that they will.

The morning they are meant to leave, Leela stands at the edge of Mancipia, stares at the glass dome and twisted spires of the place she’s been sneaking through for months now. Being expected, walking in with all of the ridiculous ritual all Gallifreyans, no matter the universe, are known for — she doesn’t like it.

But there is a power to walking in with the weight of so many people behind her. It is a power, a _responsibility_ , that Leela has never quite had before, not even at the Academy, and she hopes to carry it well.

She will see Romana and Narvin today. That in itself isn’t unusual — she has seen them many times, sneaking quietly through their city. But she will have to speak to them, these people who were once friends and are now getting on with their lives perfectly well without her. She will have to walk up to the edge of the cracks that have fractured between them, after spending so much time walking away.

Standing in the morning air, she shivers, caught in an emotion she doesn’t have a name for.

* * *

The city is a place of elaborate ritual, one endless dull ceremony after another. That is what Leela is used to.

She doesn’t expect the spectacle.

Guards flank the streets as they enter, weapons lifted in welcome, not hostility. As the delegation passes, shots are fired into the air, and as Leela twists her heads, something bright and shimmery cascades down from above, coating the street behind her. 

Leela’s skin prickles at the eyes of the guards and the Regenerators who are not high-ranking enough to enter the Inner Council chambers. They are welcoming her in name, but the stiffness in their bodies, the sharpness in their eyes, tells a different story.

At the end of the road, up the steps of the Council buildings, waits Romana, with Narvin at her shoulder. Leela doesn’t know if she resents the long walk, for giving time for her stomach to twist, or appreciates that her expression is well under control by the time she’s standing in front of them. 

“Your welcome is…most unexpected, Lady President.”

“You’re our guest, Leela.” Romana’s voice is warm. “And let me assure you that for as long as I am President, you will always be welcome here within the Capitol.” She smiles, tentative. 

Romana is draped in all the finery of the presidential office, and it suits her, as it always does. It should be enough for Leela to remember that they are no longer on the same side, and yet there’s a softness in Romana’s eyes that reminds Leela of late nights huddled together on the Axis or in the presidential palace, away from the rules of politics. Her smile lingers and the twist in Leela’s stomach tightens — she’d forgotten how beautiful Romana is, when she smiles.

She can’t afford to remember. 

“Do you say that as my friend,” Leela says, careful, “or as the leader of your tribe?”

“Well, obviously as President, of course, but that’s not to say that — "

“Good.” Leela cuts her off with the same ruthlessness with which she severs the flutter in her own ribcage. “Because we are not friends.”

Romana’s smile vanishes. “No. No it would seem not.” But her expression smooths quickly, so quickly that Leela might have imagined the sadness in her eyes. “Still, I see you’ve brought an entourage. Valyes, isn’t it?”

“How could we forget?” Narvin mutters, probably intended for Romana’s ears only, but Leela’s hearing is sharp enough to catch it. 

Values dips his head. “It’s an honor to be back inside the Capitol, Lady President.”

“Yes, I’m sure it is,” Romana waves a hand. “But come, I’ve taken the trouble of arranging a small banquet ahead of tomorrow’s talks.”

“That is most generous, thank you,” Leela says. The cool politeness feels unnatural on her tongue — this whole ritual of _negotiations_ feels unnatural. She has decided to play along, but that does not mean she has to _like_ it. 

“Oh, don’t mention it,” Narvin says, this time loud enough for everyone to hear. So far, it’s been easy enough to ignore him — he looks strange in full, colorful robes, much less like the Time Lord she’s shared many adventures with. But the sarcastic bite in his voice is so familiar that Leela has to try not to smile. 

“Will this Councillor Allora be present at the banquet?” she says instead. 

Romana nods. “She will.”

“Then it may be wise to seat me at the other end of the table.”

“That’s already been taken care of,” Narvin interjects. 

“Of course you have seen to that, Narvin. You do not change.” Her voice sounds too fondly exasperated — she wishes a moment later that she could take back the words. It’s too easy to fall into old patterns of banter with Narvin, pretend that no time has passed. But even though Leela isn’t as angry at him, she can never forget that his loyalty belongs to Romana and the Regenerators of this world. 

A change of topic, then. “Where are our dwellings?” 

Romana frowns. “I’m sorry?”

Valyes takes a careful step forward. “I think what Leela means is that we’ve covered much distance to get here, and we merely wish to freshen up.”

Romana’s eyes clear. “Ah yes, yes of course. Please, follow the guards, they’ll escort you to your chambers. Guard Commander Lukas?”

Lukas steps forward. “Supreme Leader. This way, Envoy Leela. Envoy Valyes.”

He doesn’t know it, but Leela already knew his name. She’s been watching the guards for months now, every time she sneaks into the palace. 

She isn’t sneaking now. And with every step further into the Inner Council chambers, she feels more exposed.

* * *

The banquet is the disaster it was always meant to be, but Leela doesn’t expect to be left alone with Romana at the end of it. It was one thing to guard her heart during an official welcome, it is quite another when it is just the two of them.

“Well, that went well,” Romana says into the silence.

“I think it went as well as it always would.”

“You’re probably right.” She sighs and tips her head, her eyes meeting Leela’s. “Thank you for stepping in back there.”

Leela’s response is quick, sure. “These people cannot know where we have come from. That much, I know. You do not need to thank me.”

“Perhaps not. But, it was appreciated nonetheless.” Romana hesitates. “How are you, Leela?”

Her voice is gentle, insistent on familiarity. Leela looks away. “Have we not already had this conversation?”

“I mean, how are you _really_?”

There are too many ways she could answer that question, if she really meant to be honest. She could speak of the struggles of the people around her, her worries for the future. She could speak of how wonderful and how strange being away from the city is. She could speak of the ache in her heart for everyone she has lost, an ache that seems to only grow stronger each day. She could speak of the uncertainty — what will it take, for her to truly build a life here? Will she ever feel truly comfortable in the settlements, on this world that has never been hers? 

“I am — surviving.”

“Yes.” Romana half-chuckles. “Aren’t we all.”

Frustration flares inside her. They are not _all_ facing the same battles to survive. Romana can’t know what it’s like to try to lead a people who have been hurt all their lives. She can’t understand what it’s like to go on living in a strange world surrounded entirely by strange people — she thrives in these halls of power, she still has Narvin by her side. She had never been a stranger on Gallifrey. She never will be. 

“You realize that these negotiations will fail,” Leela says, sharp. “No one wants them to work. Not Allora, not her guild, not — "

“Not you?”

“I do not understand what you are hoping for!”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not to me.” Leela stands and hides her trembling fists behind her back. Of course. Of _course_ Romana is like this — playing her games and assuming everyone else understands the rules. “When we were in the Axis, things were clear. We were there to find a home, to save ourselves, if not our Gallifrey.” On the Axis, it was easy to care for Romana and Narvin, because all they had was each other. It was easy to believe they were a team, the three of them. The Time Lords had left their worlds and their titles behind — on the Axis, they were more equal in their power. More equal in their grief. 

“But on that journey I lost…everything.” Her voice shakes. “You were President on our Gallifrey. You are still a President now. For you — ” The coil in her stomach is anger now, but it’s a deep anger, its months and years of hurt. “You have lost _nothing_.”

Leela storms out, her chest burning, eyes stinging. Romana’s call is easy to ignore — just as it was easy to ignore her the day Leela first left the city. 

Will they always end up back here, walking away from each other? 

Perhaps they will. Perhaps they will, because Romana _can’t_ understand the weight of everything Leela is carrying. Because she doesn’t even try.

( _When you said that, about belonging here. You didn’t sound sure_ , Maris said. _Who did you lose?_ Maris said.) 

Loss after loss. They cascade over her, like the waterfalls at the edge of the mountains, cold water against colder stone. They rattle under her feet, the world shaking and breaking, never stable.

* * *

A voice, crackling and triumphant. Running, fast and desperate. An explosion that leaves her ears ringing, shrapnel scraped against her skin, enough to shed blood but not enough to badly hurt.

Leela glares at the doctors in the medical station as they poke and prod at her. She knows she is fine, knows her cuts and scrapes will heal, knows the ringing in her ears has long since faded. 

(She remembers the pain, the darkness, the last time she was near an explosion. She knows the difference.)

Leela is nearly ready to push through the staff around the doors and make her escape from this place when she hears them whisper — the Supreme Leader is making a visit. 

She hesitates. If Leela is gone when Romana arrives, Romana will go looking for her, and she doesn’t need to be hunted down and dragged back into this infirmary before she’s made it back to her room. It doesn’t take long for Leela to wriggle under the sheets, prop her head against the itchy pillow and close her eyes. It doesn’t take much longer for Romana to arrive, leaving her own guards behind at the door. 

Leela keeps her breathing slow, steady. Perhaps it’s silly, to feign sleep, but it’s better than having to talk to Romana.

“The doctors say you weren’t badly hurt.” Romana’s close to the bed, her voice a whisper. “If there’s something they haven’t checked for, I’ll make sure they do. I’ll make sure Narvin doubles the guard, I’ll — ” Her voice breaks. “Whoever did this _won’t_ hurt you again.”

It feels so long ago, the day that Romana drifted in and out of consciousness in her own medical station, her body wracked with exhaustion after her battle with Pandora. Standing over her, Leela felt too helpless. Too desperate for her to wake. She wanted too much to hold Romana and never let her go again.

“I miss you,” Romana breathes, soft enough that Leela might have imagined it. She touches a hand to Leela’s shoulder, quick, before her footsteps trail away.

Leela listens to her go and hides her face against the pillow.

* * *

Andred has not been on any of the guard duties around the negotiations. That’s expected, but Leela doesn’t know what would be worse — to look him in the eye, or to never see him face to face at all.

There’s a pair of guards stationed outside the rooms they gave her. When she returns from the infirmary, Leela considers asking them where he’s stationed, but she doesn’t know what the point would be. To make sure she avoids him? To go looking for him? What would she be looking for?

The room they’ve given her is plain. Cold. Leela huddles under the blankets, eyes closed, and it doesn’t feel anything at all like her room in the guards’ housing or her room in the presidential palace. This one is temporary — the Regenerators don’t want her here for long. She doesn’t want to be here for long. Doesn’t she?

The last time she spoke with her husband, she was angry. And then she stared at his cold body and trembled with more pain than she could hold, at that ending.

The last time she spoke with Romana, she was angry, too. Leela bites her tongue, ignores the implications.

Later in the night, Leela slips away from the guards and walks through the empty halls of the Council chambers. Somewhere in this city, Romana is making plans for tomorrow, plans she’s going to try to get Leela to go along with. Narvin is helping her, probably, because Narvin does what she needs, even when he doesn’t agree. 

Leela has never been like that. She has never been able to hold herself still forever, let her loyalty outweigh what she knows is right. What she knows must be done. 

It’s late, and the thoughts trickle in against her will — memories of Romana pacing into the hours of the night, a president restless under the burden of all she has to do, under the burden of her own ghosts. Memories of Narvin staring at the wall of the medbay in the dim light of the Axis, a Time Lord with his lives stolen out from underneath him. They all have nightmares to live with. 

Leela knows what her own nightmares look like these days — what do theirs?

* * *

Mancipia and the guild will have equal stake in the mine. Those who wanted to strip the Outsiders of what little power they’ve built are in jail or banished, left to confront the allies in the wildlands they betrayed.

All surprises. None of them unwelcome, although Leela is wary of how long the mining agreement will last. The city is not used to yielding power. 

She expected a fight when she arrived in the city, and a fight she got, but not with the people she anticipated. Leela is familiar with the shape of Romana’s anger, with Romana’s insistence that she knows what is right. She is familiar with Narvin’s caution and reluctance towards change. 

She is less familiar with the way Romana and Narvin worked together to trap Allora and Valyes, quiet and moving as one. When Leela expected a fight, she did not expect to be fighting _with_ Romana and Narvin against the enemies who would like to see the settlements destroyed. 

“What do you think?” Romana asks, as they watch the news of the mining agreement break, and Leela doesn’t know what to answer. She doesn’t know what to think, not about the mining agreement, not about the events of the last few days, not about the old friends she has been trying so hard not to trust. 

“You did as you promised,” she says. Simple. Careful. “Thank you.”

Romana glances at her sideways, that old softness still in her eyes. “I hope it will go some way towards repairing our friendship.”

Leela looks away. “Your words are going to make you even more enemies on the Inner Council. Though, I am sure you are aware of that.”

“I’ll survive.” Romana hesitates. “How about you?”

There isn’t the same eagerness in her voice as when she had asked how Leela was after the banquet. She sounds wary, like she’s bracing herself for what Leela will say next.

“Thank you for your hospitality. I must now return to my people.” 

Romana sighs. “Of course you must.”

It is tempting to leave the conversation there. Leela _should_ leave the conversation there, return to Mancipia, walk away from the city like it’s easy.

It should be easy. She doesn’t _belong_ here, she has no reason to stay.

And yet, the past couple days keep spinning around and around in her mind. Leela was so certain she knew how these negotiations would play out, but she was wrong. 

What else is she wrong about? What other information is she missing?

“I do have one question.”

“Be my guest.”

Leela studies Romana. The lift of her chin, the stiffness in her clasped hands, the warmth in her eyes. “At the banquet, I asked you what you were trying to achieve here. You did not answer.”

“No.” She swallows. “No, I didn’t.”

“Perhaps you do not know the answer.”

“I — ” Romana twists her hand. “I’m just trying to make things _right_ , Leela. Whether it’s by improving this world or helping us to get back to our own Gallifrey. That’s all I want to do now — make things _right_.” 

Leela remembers the first time she met the Time Lord in front of her — how cold and dismissive she seemed. How it took time before Leela saw the care burning in her hearts — her compassion for her people, her attempts to do better by aliens and allies and other worlds. 

That same care is there now, fierce and desperate behind her eyes. This is the Romana she grew to trust, the Romana who insisted that Leela had a home by her side. 

_Did_ Leela give that trust in error? And more importantly: has she truly taken it back? 

Those are questions for another day, another time. Another late night staring at the stars above the wildlands, somewhere far away from the dome of the city and the bitter tangle of its people and its politics.

 _Make things right._ She has seen Romana try to _make things right_ , seen how it draws the anger of other Time Lords. This world isn’t safe, not for any of them. 

“But what if they find out the truth about you? That you are not the Romana that you claim to be?” 

“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we have to.”

“You are always saying that!” Something clenches in Leela’s stomach, but she doesn’t know how to tell Romana to be safe. Romana has never listened to those words, why should she start now? 

Leela swallows. “Say farewell to Narvin for me.” 

“Until the next time?”

“I do not guarantee there will be a next time.” She draws up her shoulders. She hesitates. 

All the moments tumbling through her mind — the fight against Allora, the softness in Romana’s eyes, the fierceness in her voice ( _make things right_ ) — freeze. Leela has been betrayed too many times. But she has been so lonely, for so long. 

She exhales. “But I hope there is.”

* * *

Time passes. The settlements grow. They carve out their own pieces of Gallifrey’s land and find ways to live with this world. They choose leaders. They trade — resources, ideas.

The weight on her shoulders — _she is responsible for these people, for their futures_ — is still heavy, but it doesn’t hurt. Leela has never truly had power anywhere, never been a constant fixture that people turned to for decisions and advice. She has never sat among a council of her equals and tried to build a better world.

Some days, she is wary of the attention. She has never shied away from being noticed, but being noticed has usually meant scorn, rejection. To be noticed, and valued, is only ever something individual people have done. Not groups. Not communities. Not since she was younger and the Sevateem called her spirit _brave_ instead of _blasphemous_. 

Leela is not from this world. How long will it before these people reject her, too?

But she comes out of a meeting with the other township leaders knowing where Mancipia’s food for the week is coming from, knowing how they will move fresh water so those on the outskirts will not have to walk as far, knowing that they are all trying to build something to last.

There is a steadiness under her feet that she hasn’t felt in a long time, and she is building it herself, day by day.

* * *

Time passes. The settlements grow, and fractures grow with them. Disputes over food. Old grudges that burn hot when a child is sick, or rations are stolen.

The steadiness she is building will be tested, Leela knows, but it’s only when Maris blurts out her secret ( _“Narvin. He asked me to watch you. I’ve been watching you, reporting back to him everything you’ve done, Leela, for months now, it’s all been going back to him!”_ ) that Leela understands just how personal that test will be.

Leela sits in front of Maris, hands trembling — in anger or in grief, she doesn’t know. “What I cannot understand is why you did it. After all that we have said to each other about honesty — we have talked again and again about how the former slaves must learn to trust each other.”

“I know.”

“And yet, at the same time you were saying these things, you were lying to me! Why would you do this? Did you not trust me? I trusted you!”

_I trusted you._

Lies sting, salt in an old wound that Leela wishes would scar over already. Lies are what fractured her world in the first place ( _she had trusted that Andred would never lie to her, not about something so serious_ ), lies are what ripped those cracks open again and again ( _she had trusted Romana too, when she claimed not to know how Andred died_ ). 

Maris purses her lips. “Perhaps, but — why _should_ we trust you? You’re not one of us, not really! Yes, you say that you’re for us, but why should we believe you?”

Coldness washes over her. _How long will it be, before these people reject her, too?_

“Yet you believe Hector.”

“That’s different.” Maris lifts her chin. “Hector was a slave, too, Hector had no reason to lie.”

“Nor have I!”

“We know your friendships with these people!” Maris bursts out, and Leela flinches. 

She remembers Maris’ questions, the wariness in her eyes when Leela returned late from the Citadel. At what point in their supply runs into the city, did Narvin find her? At what point did he make her promises for information? What did he give, or threaten (because that is the language these Outsiders have learned to speak, the language of being punished and being spared)? What did Narvin tell Maris, about why he was watching Leela? Was that enough to make her part of the city, in Maris’ eyes? 

“Friendships — what friendships?” Her fists clench — _friends_ would not need to spy. Friends would not need to lie. 

Yes, she has been watching Romana and Narvin for months, but that’s different. They hold the levers of power, they are potential threats, or potential allies. It was not a betrayal of anything. It had nothing to do with friendship. 

The insistence sounds hollow, even in her own mind. 

“With the President! With her closest allies.”

“You cannot really believe that I would betray you, not to them!”

“And why shouldn’t we? Why should we believe that one day you won’t tire of us and go back to them!”

The anger rising in Leela’s throat freezes — Maris’ accusation is too much like the accusations in her own mind. Seeing Romana’s smile, hearing Narvin’s dry wit — it felt like old, familiar pieces of herself were falling into place again. The trip into the Capitol was a minefield, and in the months since, Leela has tried to ignore her feelings and tried to explain them away. But faced with the distrust in Maris’ eyes, she can’t pretend anymore.

She misses them. Of course she misses them. She would not betray these people for them, but neither would she betray Romana and Narvin, neither would she trade their lives for a victory for Mancipia. It has been easy enough to justify these two loyalties — Romana and Narvin are the closest allies the Outsiders have among the Regenerators — but she doesn’t know what she would do if they were truly tested.

“Slaves don’t have friends,” Maris says, sharp. 

_Presidents don’t have friends_ , Romana said, once.

“We can’t afford to.”

* * *

Leela watches the Pathway burn open, watches Maris stand tall, watches people who have lived so much of their lives in fear believe in a place where they can be safe. She watches Hector stay, give the last scraps of fight he has, so others can be free.

Back in the base, something twists in her chest, something between affection and grief. She cares for these people, and she hopes, somehow, they find what they’re looking for. 

Narvin’s voice crackles through the comms system, startling her. “All those people — gone. Just like that. Did Leela go too, or is she — ”

“I am still on this world, Narvin.” Something else fills her chest at the concern in his voice, something warm and deep and difficult to explain. “But back where I first came from, in the base on the mountain. The others have gone.”

“So, where are they now?”

“Oh, the White Lands, of course.” Leela chuckles. “Do you not listen?”

“Oh, of _course_ ,” Narvin retorts. He cannot see her, and so there is no reason to hide the grin that spreads across her face at his familiar sarcasm. 

Romana’s voice rings out through the comms now, along with the voice of a Regenerator Leela doesn’t know. Leela hears _experiments on slaves_ and the grin drops from her face. 

“You cannot halt progress for the sake of a few — _savages_ ,” the voice spits, and Leela’s hands clench. She wishes she was back in the room with Romana and Narvin, if only so she could watch this man’s nose break under her fist.

Romana’s voice is ice when she orders him arrested, and Leela exhales in bitter relief. 

“Who’s the man who stayed behind, Leela?” Narvin asks, and Leela’s anger is once again threaded with sadness. 

“Hector.” She swallows. “His name was Hector.”

“It’s a shame he didn’t get to go with them,” Romana says. “Wherever they are.”

Leela closes her eyes. She will miss them, the Outsiders who have left for another world, but the care she felt towards them is not the same as the fierce ache that welled up inside her at seeing Romana and Narvin again, at leaving them behind once more. Missing them is different, _more_.

But the steadiness under her feet _is_ growing, the longer she is away. This place has given her time, to catch her breath, to learn to be alone with her own choices. She doesn’t want to leave it behind either. 

(The stillness hurts sometimes, but always moving, always racing ahead, had hurt, too.) 

They will need to close down this comms link shortly, but there is one more thing Leela needs to say. 

“Oh, and Narvin? _Spying_ on me?”

“It wasn’t _spying_.” He sounds defensive, a bit flustered. Leela thinks of the genuine worry in his voice when he thought she had left with the others, and it’s suddenly easier to forgive him for using Maris to watch her. The realization crashes through her: she _wants_ to forgive him, like how she wanted to forgive Romana, when they stood side-by-side in the city.

She wants to be angry — to let it burn through her, to let the sparks that have festered inside blaze free at last. But she wants it to burn itself out, leave behind an ashen forest in which new life may grow. She doesn’t want to be angry at them, either of them, forever.

“No?” Leela pauses, sighs. “Your methods are — questionable. But your intent was good.” She lets herself smile, small and quiet. “Thank you.”

* * *

News of the mountain base reaches the townships. Some are angry that they did not get the chance to leave, too. Some call those that did foolish.

Leela doesn’t say much, her heart a strange hurricane. She is familiar with moving forward, finding new places to stay and new people to live her life with, but she isn’t used to the way Mancipia doesn’t quite fit right, the longer she remains. She should be happy, and in many ways she _is_ happy, with not being stuck with Time Lords ( _Regenerators_ ) and their rituals and pompous attitudes, the way they turn their noses up at the rest of their world and the rest of the universe. But the people of Mancipia don’t know her story. They don’t know what it’s like to run among the stars, to fight a civil war for the future of Gallifrey, to travel from universe to universe and hope for a home. 

Leela expected that the longer she stayed here, the more that ache for familiar company would fade, but to her surprise, it has only grown stronger with time.

She watches Romana and Narvin on the vidcasts and when she sneaks into the Citadel on her next supply run, notices how they pass words along in glances, hears rumors that the Lord High President genuinely seems to _trust_ her High Chancellor these days, and smiles. It is good to watch them work together. To see that their friendship has not only outlasted the Axis, but grown stronger in this hostile world. 

Leela nearly reveals herself. She steps back into the shadows just in time.

It isn’t long after the mountain base when rumors start flying in Mancipia. Someone has heard which powerful Regenerator who was visiting the city to sponsor Romana's scientific competition, and old stories, old losses, bubble to the surface. 

That afternoon, Jamalan sits in her hut, eyes stormy.

“He killed my family,” he whispers, hoarse, and Leela remembers what Maris said: _We’ve all lost people._

_(On another world, she stood before the place where they buried her husband, and the cold earth under her feet matched the ice in her breath, matched the way her bones could barely move. There was so little fire left in her. She was so sure it would burn out soon.)_

_(On another world, she stood before the graves of students, young, hopeful, who died because of a Time Lord’s ambition. She was supposed to protect them.)_

_(On her own world, long ago, she stood before the bodies of friends, family. On her own world, sometimes, people were lost and never returned.)_

Leela didn’t know the people who died on the Amazad. This loss is not her loss. But the grief that wells up inside her ( _too many gone, too many graves_ ) is her own grief, and when Jamalan lets his tears fall, she turns her head and doesn’t stop her own.

* * *

When news of Zachar’s travels reaches Mancipia, when the murmurs turn hot and angry, it is easy to stand in front of these people and say yes, this killer will not go free. Yes, this time there will be punishment.

(Yes, this time there will be peace.)

They drag him from his transporter, and when he wakes, he is every bit the man they said he is. Arrogant, cold. Insisting his life matters more than their justice because he has wealth and the ear of power. Insisting that he can destroy them.

“I am Leela of the Sevateem.” She stares down the bound man in front of her. She has spent too many years of her life clashing with those who question her power. “And for as long as they need me, I am the leader of the freed slaves of Mancipia.”

“Oh, is that so? Well, perhaps you can explain what the _hell_ I am doing here!”

She has listened to the recording of his guilt more than once. His pretend indignance sparks something in her, and she barely refrains from pinning him to the wall and ending his life herself.

Leela reminds herself: this is not her vengeance. 

Still, she lets her hand linger on the knife at her side. “With pleasure. Lord Zachar, you are charged with murder and crimes against the Outsiders of Gallifrey. You will be allowed representation, but know that if found guilty, you will be sentenced as severely as our law allows. That is — with a punishment of death.”

“What?”

“You have heard our words. This is the fate that now awaits you.”

“But — no.” A flicker of fear appears in his eyes at last. “Do you have any idea who I am, what I can do?”

“Oh yes.” Her finger trails on the knife handle, her voice low and angry. “I know what you are capable of. _That_ is why you are here.” She turns, sharp. “I will see you at your trial.” 

As she walks away, he tries to struggle, strains uselessly against his bonds. “Come back here! I demand an explanation! Who do you _savages_ think you are?”

Leela stops, cold. She reminds herself, again: this is not her justice. 

But justice for the Outsiders is not the only reason her blood burns. Leela has sought out many killers in her life. She remembers how her blade felt in Antimon’s hearts, in Pandora’s. Death choked the air around her, and it should have meant vengeance, and it should have meant peace for the death of students and guards and her K9, for the death of her husband. But blood stained her hands, and they shook, and it didn’t bring relief. Antimon’s death led to the revelation of Andred’s true killer, and the fire left in Leela turned cold. Pandora’s death nearly killed Romana, and that moment of _fear_ shook her deeper than any satisfaction from destroying the spirit. 

Leela has spent much time over the past several months sitting with her own grief, breathing in, breathing out. This time, she wants to earn this justice. She wants it to last.

* * *

She doesn’t expect Narvin’s arrival. But the proud Time Lord has crossed the wildlands to meet with her, rather than expecting her to travel to his world, and there is a respect in that gesture that pleases her.

“It is a surprise to see you here.” She dares for a smile, leaning back against the wall of her house. Seeing him here properly, not just a voice over the communicator — that feeling from the mountaintop base swells inside her once more, warm and dizzying. 

“What do you want?” she asks, curious. 

“Well, you can begin by releasing Lord Zachar from his unlawful imprisonment,” Narvin replies, and any pleasure at seeing him vanishes. 

Of course. Of course his visit is another power play, an attempt to twist her arm until she does what he wants. But he is on _her_ ground now, among _her_ people, and Leela will not bend. 

Narvin calls Zachar a _citizen of Gallifrey_ like it means his life matters more, calls the charges _alleged_ when she knows they’re true. Dismisses Mancipia justice as primitive — he doesn’t use the word, but it’s in his voice. He sounds every bit a politician, a Time Lord, and very little her friend. 

“Why did you come here, Narvin? Really.” Leela is too tired, too _angry_ , to deal with him today. 

“I came here, as I’ve already said, to ask that you release Lord Zachar into my custody.”

“Then it has been a wasted journey.”

“Romana is as concerned by these charges as you are.”

“Is she.” If there is any redeeming emotion Leela feels towards Narvin now, it’s grudging respect that he, at least, was willing to face her in person. How concerned can Romana be, really, if she hides out in the city and sends her Chancellor to collect a guilty man? 

Narvin keeps talking, trying to convince her that justice for the deaths of two hundred and thirty-seven can be found in the Citadel, but he has already played his hand. She knows why he is here; he’ll say whatever he needs to convince her to do what he wants, even if it’s a lie.

The Time Lords ( _Regenerators_ ) would never turn on one of their own. 

“If Romana allows you to go ahead with this charade, there’s no telling what the Inner Council might order. Military action, perhaps.”

Leela’s hands clench. “Against us? Against Mancipia?”

“Who can say. These are hardly peace-loving Gallifreyans, Leela, you know that.”

She laughs, low. Too many Time Lords on too many Gallifreys have underestimated her. “Well, I would like to see them try.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Narvin snaps. “How many people are there in Mancipia? A thousand? Twelve hundred at best?” He takes a deep breath, eyes narrowed. “There are two thousand soldiers in the Capitol’s barracks alone, a further eight thousand garrisoned less than a day’s journey away. Wage war against the Inner Council, and there would be a massacre here.”

“You are sure of that?”

“You’d be outnumbered and surrounded, Leela. Long before you could get support from Arcos and the others.”

Leela has trained these people herself how to fight; she knows the placement and nature of all their defenses. She has been outnumbered for so much of her life — a heretic, an alien, an _outsider_. On all her travels, she had been outmatched in battle many times, but numbers are not the only ways to win a fight.

Leela is tired of losing, tired of giving in. 

She leans back, lips pursed. “Have I ever told you the story of Leela and the hundred Tesh?”

“I don’t believe you have. Is it autobiographical?”

“Is it what?”

Narvin sighs. “Never mind.”

The words flow easily — even after all these years, she can remember the sound of her mother’s voice late at night, telling Leela of her brave namesake. The warrior who was attacked in the night by a hundred Tesh and defeated them all with a party of five by sunrise. Narvin shifts impatiently as she speaks, but he is in Leela’s world now. She has the man he wants to spring, she has the power to outwit his guards. For once, he can do nothing but listen. 

“That sounds like a legend, Leela. A myth,” he says, sharp. “This is reality.”

Leela stands to her full height, her glare pinning Narvin in place. “If it is a myth, it’s lesson is simple: never underestimate a Leela of the Sevateem.”

“It’s a lesson I’ve learnt on more than one occasion, but these people are _not_ Sevateem.” Now Narvin is the one to step forward, frustration cracking into his voice. “I think you’re beginning to lose sight of that. They are _not_ your people!”

Leela stiffens, the words landing too close to the tangle of emotions that have been simmering inside her since the mountains. But she doesn’t want to think about what she feels now, not with the trial of a murderer at stake. And whatever warmth she had felt towards Narvin and Romana is clouded again by anger — they are not _hers_ either.

“While we are here, and they need someone to lead them, they _are_.”

“No, they are not. And what’s more, we may not _be_ here to protect you much longer.” Narvin glances over his shoulder and shuffles forward, lowering his voice. “Listen, we’ve picked up a waveform. We think it’s a signal from the Axis. It’s getting stronger, too. Soon, we may be able to get _back_.”

 _Back_. It’s a possibility that Leela has been trying to forget — what are the chances that Narvin and Romana could truly find a way to summon the Axis? She’s been let down too many times before — she isn’t going to feed false hope.

And there’s nothing to say that this is anything _but_ false hope. Narvin has an agenda here, she reminds herself. 

“You...are lying. To make me change my mind.” Leela means to accuse, but her words come out uncertain. 

The desire to trust is still frustratingly hard to bury.

“I’m not,” Narvin says, and he _sounds_ honest, but Leela doesn’t know if she knows him well enough anymore (if she ever knew him well enough) to be certain. “I’m fairly certain we will have bridged an active portal within the next three days.” Narvin swallows, and his eyes flicker with a vulnerability she’s rarely seen. “Come with me, Leela. _Please_.”

Her heart aches with the desire to say _yes_ , voice her own doubts of her future in Mancipia. But Maris’s accusations ring in her mind ( _Why should we believe that one day you won’t tire of us and go back to them?_ ). Right here, right now, there is still something for her to fight for in this township. 

Right now, she speaks for the people of Mancipia, and their heartache outweighs everything. 

“Even if I believed you and came with you, Zachar would stay here.” Leela is unflinching. “He _will_ face Mancipian justice.”

* * *

The guards at night are not unexpected, but the sound of staser fire leaves a sour taste in her mouth, a bitterness sinking into her stomach. For all that Leela was prepared for the worst, it was too easy to hope that Romana would do the right thing. Or at the very least, that she would believe Leela and her people knew how to defend themselves.

The attack is cruel and condescending all at once. 

When she is certain that the fight is over, Leela shoves her way into Zachar’s cell, Jamalan by her side.

“Did you know this would happen?” 

He tips his head in pretend ignorance. “That what would happen?”

Jamalan squares his shoulders. “A squad of guardsmen from the Capitol have tried to storm Mancipia.”

“Tried?” Zachar says evenly, but his eyes once again betray a flicker of fear. But there is one thing that is not visible: surprise.

“You knew,” Leela breathes. “You _knew_!”

“What happened?” Zachar asks. 

Leela turns away from the murderer at her feet, eyes flashing, feet pacing. “Oh, she must think me an _idiot_.”

“Who?”

“Romana! She must think I am a fool, to try something like this and to never _imagine_ that I would be prepared for it!”

“What _happened_?”

Leela stops. When she faces Zachar again, it’s with raised eyebrows and a cool smile. Triumph, with all her anger simmering under the surface. “Oh, they were not successful, Zachar. Your rescue is — all _dead_.”

But the swell of victory does not last. That morning, guards begin pouring out from the walls of the Citadel, scurrying ants moving without thought and piling up on the edges of her town. The coldness, the _bitterness_ , in Leela’s stomach tightens. It stings sharper, to have only just truly admitted to herself how much she misses Romana and Narvin, only to have them turn their power on her people. 

She has spent enough time being _ignored_. 

The Castellan’s announcement rings out over Mancipia. A challenge. _You have until sundown to release Lord Zachar unharmed._ Leela lets it burn through her — this fight was always coming. The tentative, distant peace between their two groups of people was never meant to last. 

And Zachar, a man so used to having power no matter where he stands, is unbearably smug. “Harm one hair on my head and you and this town and all its people will be ashes by midnight.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“I’m certain. The soldiers out there outnumber the entire population of this township. Now, unless you intend for even the _children_ to take up arms, I can’t see how you’re able to defend _yourselves_ , let alone repel the Castellan’s forces.”

Jamalan crosses his arms. “You would have a point if Mancipia was the only township of Outsiders. But there are a great many more of _us_ than there are of _you_. I think you’ll find it is _your_ army that is outnumbered.”

“Then it’s civil war you want,” Zachar says, and Leela’s blood runs cold. 

“If that is how it must end,” Jamalan snaps back, but now the flicker of fear is visible on _his_ face. 

Zachar leans forward, eyes glittering. Cold, malicious. “A civil war that would kill thousands, tens of thousands, maybe _hundreds_ of thousands.”

 _Civil war._ The memories that surge within her — blood soaking her hands and the fabric of her clothes, blood of her enemies and her friends both. Hundreds of still bodies lowered into the earth. Long days huddled in old tunnels or broken rubble, days spent _regrouping_ in a way that felt like hiding. Her world breaking into light and then collapsing into darkness, a darkness that lingered long after the fighting had stopped. A world torn apart, a world that never even had a chance to recover before the Dogma virus sunk into its people and stole their souls. 

“If we must.” Jamalan clenches his fists, his voice defiant even if his eyes are not. Leela takes a deep breath, forces back the tide of memories. 

“And all for the sake of two hundred and thirty-seven dead slaves.”

“This is not about how many slaves you allowed to die,” she says, quiet. She is tired of numbers, tired of people insisting on sacrificing the few for the many, tired of some lives considered more expendable than others. “Even if you had knowingly allowed a _single_ slave to perish, you would still be in that cell.”

Zachar spits his words — _you’re beyond both help and reason, you aren’t fit to lead these people, you deserve everything that’s coming to you._ Leela turns away from him, from his lies and his cruelty, and ignores the other memories that spring forward ( _Romana drew her lines and refused to bend, and the world shattered around her. But that didn’t mean she was wrong to fight — didn’t it?_ ). 

And Leela’s anger is of a different kind — the anger of the powerless. These people have had too much taken away from them. She will not let the chance of justice be something else that is stolen.

* * *

The morning drags to afternoon. The guards gather, proud and certain in their victory. Leela counts the fighters among all the townships, counts the traps and defense they’ve laid. But as they roll in with their machines and men, she watches the flicker in Jamalan’s eyes grow until his whole face is awash in fear. Until he doubts that the leaders of the other townships will risk coming to their aid, until he doubts that they can fight at all.

_We wouldn’t stand a chance._

“Then what would you suggest Jamalan?” Leela snaps. “That we just let Zachar go?”

“I don’t know what else _to_ suggest.”

“No. He _cannot_ walk free.” Her eyes are stinging. “It would be as good as saying what he did did not matter, that the lives of the slaves were worthless.”

“And the lives of everyone in Mancipia? What are _they_ worth?”

 _What are_ they _worth?_

But Leela doesn’t have time to answer, or to even think of an answer, before Narvin steps into her world once more, this time with Romana secretly at his side. The last time, Leela was touched that he had crossed the wildlands; this time she feels no such fondness towards either of them. They have shown who they are through a guard patrol in the night, through the Regenerators circling Mancipia, through demand after demand that Leela can’t possibly give in to. 

Romana’s appearance may be a surprise, but it doesn’t matter. It’s too late now. 

Leela knows how this confrontation will play out — Romana’s insistence on having her way, Leela’s refusal. The two of them clashing, angry — perhaps this fight was always coming, too. It has been many months since Leela first stormed out of the Capitol, and that old anger hasn’t yet had the chance to truly burn. 

_You have never listened. You decide, but you never_ listen.

Leela doesn’t feel like listening either, but Romana keeps _talking_ , claiming she didn’t want the guards storming into Mancipia last night, claiming that surrender is the only option. 

“I know he’s guilty,” Romana says, and Leela does pause at that. “And it’s tearing me apart, knowing he might walk free, that he won’t face justice. But the alternative is the army marching into this town and massacring everyone here. I don’t have enough power to stop them!”

“But you are the President!” Jamalan stares. 

“Not for much longer, I think.” Romana looks tired. How long has it been since Leela noticed that, since Leela _let_ herself notice the weariness in Romana’s shoulders, let herself ache at the sight of a friend worn down by too many battles. 

( _Romana isn’t your friend_ , a voice in her head tries to insist, but it’s quieter than it’s ever been.)

“The Inner Council has already used the Constitution to outvote me. That’s why the army are here, now.” It isn’t just exhaustion — there is pain in Romana’s eyes. “I _tried_ to stop them!”

“Is this true?” Leela means to interrogate, sharp, but her voice breaks. 

Narvin steps in to back up Romana’s story, confessing that he made a mistake. Leela wants to reject their stories, tell them to leave, tell them it’s too _late_. (She wants to believe them. She wants to believe that they truly care.) 

Narvin keeps talking. “We won’t be here much longer, not if we want to go home. And you _do_ want to go home, don’t you?”

 _What makes you so sure that Gallifrey is my home?_ Leela should say. _I have made a place for myself on a new world before, and there are people on this one who I care about. I do not need your old world and its old cruelty. There is nothing for me there_.

But Narvin said _We won’t be here much longer_ , and Leela abruptly found it harder to breathe. She can care for this world and its people, she _does_ , but there is no one here who is truly hers, who fits the aching absence she’s been trying to fill. An absence that isn’t just grief, but loneliness. An absence that is shaped so much like these two people in front of her. 

There is nothing for her on the old Gallifrey — except them. 

“Yes,” Leela whispers. “Of course.”

“Then, please.” Romana steps forward. “You need to hand over Lord Zachar. Let this Gallifrey deal with him as they see fit, but let’s not leave this world on the brink of civil war. I couldn’t _bear_ to think of that as our legacy.”

 _Civil war._ That word again. That outcome. The look in Romana’s eyes is beyond hurt and exhaustion — it’s a desperate fear and something sharper, more angry, something pointed inward. She looked something like this when they were fighting Pandora, hearing the count of how many had died or how many buildings had burned. She looked like this when she sealed the portal to protect this world and strand them here. 

Jamalan turns to Leela, speaks of his grief for his family, his hatred of Zachar. And his desperation to protect those he has left. Living for freedom, rather dying for vengeance. 

Leela was ready to die for vengeance so many times on the old Gallifrey. She was so _sure_ that she would die so very soon.

But here she is, so much later, her grief a weight that aches but does not topple her. Here she is, alive.

But this fight — how can she give up _this_ fight?

Her voice breaks, again. “He is a _murderer_.”

“I _know_.”

“He should hang for what he did.”

Romana’s eyes are stormy. “And if he did, if you were the ones to do it, I can guarantee almost each and every person in this township _will_ die.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No.” Romana exhales, long and weary. “A statement of fact. Please. Let him _go_. Release Zachar into my custody.”

The old blood on Leela’s hands. The fear in Jamalan’s eyes. Leela stands and remembers death on too large a scale to carry, stands and wavers.

Romana stands in front of her, tired, scared in a way Leela hasn’t seen in a long time. She carries herself not with the arrogance of the Time Lords, but with the protectiveness of the President who wants to shield her people from harm, who would throw herself into the fire if she thought it was needed. Her words aren’t careful, planned — they ring out, honest and aching. 

That honesty isn’t nothing, but it still isn’t everything. Romana is standing in Leela’s world, and she has to _know_ that, has to _see_ it. 

“When I was a girl, our village was attacked by a group of Tesh raiders,” Leela says. The story isn’t as smooth as the one she told Narvin — this one is Leela’s own story, and she pauses, stumbles, shifts between anger and a fondness for her mother’s friend. From her youngest years, there has always been suffering, and there have always been people who did not pay for it. Romana has to see that. Romana has to _understand_. 

Romana’s eyes are soft with sadness when Leela finishes, and to Leela’s surprise, she steps across the space between them. Her hand lands on Leela’s wrist, gentle but sure. It’s a familiar touch, but one she hasn’t felt in a long time. 

“Ask yourself this, Leela,” Romana says. “If you’d had to choose between punishing those who took and killed your friend and saving the lives of everyone in your village, what would you have done then?”

 _And the lives of everyone in Mancipia? What are_ they _worth_?

Leela has spent so long building the steadiness under her feet. Surrender feels like weakness, it _should_ be weakness. But Romana is staring at her with quiet eyes — Romana, who crossed the wildlands in disguise to see her — and they both have too many memories of what happens when a war begins. 

Leela has too many memories of choosing vengeance over life.

“Very well.” She exhales and watches the relief burst into Romana’s eyes, feels her hand find Leela’s and hold tight. “Zachar may go free.”

* * *

Their return trip to the Capitol feels strange. Leela is only going with them to make sure there is some kind of justice pursued, even if it is slow, even if she doesn’t truly trust it. But when Narvin and Romana speak of the future, it is away from here. The return of the Axis — when they were first trapped here, months ago, Leela would have given so much to bring that portal back. But now guilt races through her — is it wrong, to want to follow these people, her old friends, back to a world that never wanted her? What would it mean, to walk away from people she has spent so long swearing to protect?

 _This isn’t our home, not really. And it never has been._ Narvin’s words echo through her as they settle into the Panopticon. 

Some Councillor speaks, throwing hostile words in Leela’s direction. She doesn’t flinch — she’s heard far worse — but to be the object of anger and mistrust while a mass murderer is cheered and _applauded_ — 

And then Zachar talks, and the glittering confidence is back in his eyes, that certainty in his power. She watches his smirk when he claims not to be a politician, watches how he turns his nose at the Outsiders, begins to speak of how they should be back in chains —

And then the recording screeches in, those voices she listened to in a quiet corner of the township suddenly loud and blaring out for everyone to hear. Condemning them, children and all, to die in the desert. And in the aftermath of the chaos, Romana’s voice rings out, followed by the Castellan’s — an order to arrest. 

Leela watches as the flicker she saw in Zachar’s eyes in his cell returns in force, a trembling fear visible in the way he rambles, throws out the story of imposters that many will not believe now. She watches Romana glare at Zachar with all the fire she can muster ( _“When in the Panopticon, Lord Zachar, I am your Supreme Leader, and you will refer to me as Lady President. Now, take him away.”_ ), and Leela _laughs_.

It has been so long since she laughed like that — in satisfaction, in hope. Romana smiles back, her eyes shining, and Narvin returns to her side, triumphant, and most of all, _this_ is what Leela’s missed. The three of them, working together. 

The three of them, together.

* * *

Together doesn’t last — the moment breaks as the Daleks swarm Gallifrey, as Leela’s heart grows cold, and Romana’s eyes grow colder. It isn’t long before she’s running through the corridors with Narvin by her side and wishing that they hadn’t left so soon, wishing she had demanded that Romana leave the Panopticon by their side.

Leela’s breath rushes in and out. At least they’ll be at the Council chambers soon. And Romana is clever — surely, she must have found a way to slip past the Daleks. Surely, within moments, the three of them will be fighting side-by-side again.

And then the doors start closing, and Narvin starts saying words that don’t make sense, insisting on leaving Romana behind. Leela’s stomach tightens — after all they’ve been through, she had hoped, at least, that he had grown beyond his own fear. 

“We shall wait for her.” Leela crosses her arms, doesn't move one bit. 

“We can’t, Leela, _really_ , not this time. The doors are closing, we don’t have time.”

“ _I_ shall wait then,” she says, swallowing the sting in the words. 

Narvin huffs out a breath. “Oh, I wish I could keep up with your shifting allegiance to her!”

“It is not alle-giance.” Her eyes narrow. “That is the word of a politician.” And Leela has tried to stay away, tried to close her heart towards the warmth she feels to Romana, but it has never worked. Even when they were merely allies, defending Romana was always an instinct — at the banquet, it was second nature to step in when Romana needed her. And she has only just found herself back by Romana’s side, only just let herself see the care in Romana’s eyes, let it fill her hearts. She won’t lose her, not now. Not _ever_. “We may not always agree and see eye to eye, but Romana has always been my friend. When she needs me, as she does now, I will support her without question. That will _never_ change.”

The shutdown message blares out once again, and Narvin jerks his head, stepping closer to the lowering door. He keeps talking, voice low and desperate, but this time, she won’t let herself be persuaded. There are things she will always stand her ground for, and protecting those who matter most to her is one of them. That is something that is always worth risking her life. 

“Leela, please!” His voice cracks. “I’m begging you. I can’t regenerate ever again, and _I don’t want to die_.”

“There is nothing to fear in death,” Leela says, quiet. “One story ends, and another takes its place. And if our story is to end today, so be it. Go if you must, but I will stand alongside Romana, against our foe.” _Standing together, with friends, is that not the best kind of ending?_ But if he doesn’t understand, if he won’t stay, she can’t make him. And so Leela swallows the lump in her throat and turns away from Narvin. Her last glimpse of him will be of fear and darting eyes, but at least she won’t have to watch him leave. At least it will be easier to try to remember him at his best. “I shall not watch you flee.”

She tries to ignore his last words, tries to keep her jaw steady as she speaks her own goodbye. When the door seals, her eyes squeeze shut — that was the last time she will ever see him, she knows it. 

And then a throat clears behind her, and Leela gasps. 

When she turns, Narvin stands in front of the sealed door, eyes darting just as nervously, but feet planted firmly in place. 

“You,” she breathes. “You are still here.”

“I am.” He lifts his head, brow furrowed. “Are you...are you alright?”

“I am…” Leela shakes her head. “....surprised.”

He scuffs his shoe against the floor, not quite meeting her eyes. “Pleased, as well, I hope.”

Leela smiles, wide and certain. “You are not the man you used to be, Narvin. That pleases me more than anything.”

“Oh.” Narvin turns a bit pink, and warmth washes over Leela, head to toe. “Well, that’s good. I think.”

She steps forward, crossing to where he stands. Her brow furrows. “What made you change your mind?”

He exhales, slow and tired. “I want to know how this story ends. For all of us. And if today’s the day, and this is our final chapter, like you say, well.” Narvin is blinking too hard, but Leela is too, so it doesn’t matter much. “I’m determined to make it a good one. By your side.”

Of course she missed him. Of course she did — this annoying, sharp, sarcastic Time Lord bureaucrat who cares more than he wants to admit. Who seems to have found that admitting it might be worth it after all. 

“Then that is the best of reasons you could have,” Leela murmurs and squeezes his hand, gentle and sure.

* * *

They spend too long dashing through the corridors, and the energy racing through her body, pushing her legs to run and run, her heart to pound, is feeling more like panic the longer they call and call and hear no response.

Romana _must_ still be alive. The alternative — the alternative steals her breath and seizes her chest and Leela refuses to think of it. 

When Leela calls and hears her own name echoed in response, a giddy delight crashes over her. She stumbles, breaking into a proper run, and skids to a halt, half-laughing. 

“It is good to see you again, Romana!” She’s clutching Romana’s arm before she remembers that for all the quiet embraces they’ve shared away from the rest of the world, Romana has always shied away from her touch in public.

But Romana doesn’t recoil now. She seizes Leela's other arm, her eyes warm with the same relief Leela feels. It isn’t really like a proper embrace, but the shape of Romana’s hands is familiar against Leela’s skin, and her heart, still full of energy from the running and the panic, keeps on racing.

 _A friend of mine_ , Romana says, _My best friend._

Leela waited so long for the first time Romana called her a friend, but that original confession was private. Romana has always been hesitant to voice her affection too loudly, to let others in on the secret that she _cares_. But here and now, despite the invasion and the threat of death still staring them down, Romana is smiling, and any skittishness is well and truly outshone by the joy in her eyes.

* * *

The Daleks are defeated, and Leela stands in the Axis, a dark path between worlds, a stopping point that was always meant to be temporary.

Narvin is beside her when Romana returns and insists that their old Gallifrey is where they belong. 

The way these two Time Lords speak of their world — Narvin as they returned with Zachar, Romana now that they are back on the Axis — it’s with a deep ache, a need for the place they grew up on, the place they swore to protect. That _need_ , that is something Leela can’t share. She has never needed any one place to be at peace. 

Leela doesn't even need _Romana_ , not like she used to. Not the all-burning need of _your voice asking me to stay is the only reason my bones do not freeze, your smile, rare as it is, is the remaining warmth in my blood. Fighting for you is the last thing keeping me alive on this old, stale world_.

There are other things to live for, other fights to burn for. She doesn't need Romana to give her a purpose, a reason to survive. She made her own purpose on the world they just left behind; she can do it again no matter where her path leads.

She doesn’t _need_ Romana. She doesn’t _need_ Narvin, either. But standing beside them both, the warmth from Narvin’s decision to stay and Romana’s shining delight at seeing her lodged deep in her heart, Leela knows: that is the point. 

Leela can live her life without them. She simply doesn’t want to. 

When she ran from the city, it was a choice. When she steps first through the portal back, trusting that Romana and Narvin will follow behind her, it is another.


End file.
